Grounded (Up In The Air #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Mr. Reticent

He hooked a finger into my collar when the car opened, leading me down that long hallway. He stopped short of the playground, instead opening a door just before it on the right.

Even feeling nervous and anxious, I was beyond curious to see what was in there. It didn’t bode well though, that he was only taking me there now that he was in this mood.

It was a rather small and nondescript room, holding nothing but one twin bed.

“Get on the bed,” he said in that worrisome voice. “On your stomach.”

I did it, turning my head to look up at him as he approached my prone figure.

“Don’t look at me,” he said.

I turned my head away quickly, feeling stung.

“Arms above your head,” he ordered.

I complied.

He secured my hands and feet together and to the small bed. I tugged experimentally, and saw that he’d left me quite a bit of slack.

I tensed when I felt him pulling at my clothes. A loud tearing sound told me that he was cutting them off. I was bare when he was done.

“James,” I began again. Maybe now that I was restrained he would feel calmer.

“Don’t. I don’t trust myself right now,” he said in a gruff voice.

He adjusted my head, wedging a soft pillow there. “Go to sleep. You were up all night, and I need to go get myself in hand. We’ll talk later.”

Before I could respond he was turning out the light, shutting the door and a loud lock was clicking into place.

I couldn’t believe it. After all of that rage, he’d just left me. He knew that this was the punishment I hated the most, with the suspense and the unanswered questions, and he’d left me in the dark. In a cell. The bastard.

I had some dark thoughts about him for quite a while in that pitch-black room before I was able to relax my mind enough to let sleep take me. He hadn’t left me so much as a light under the locked door. I was shut in tight.

I awoke as the door opened and a stream of light from the hallway fell across me. I turned my face away. The overhead light switched on. My restraints were already loose, but Mr. Cavendish added some slack to the rope, pulling me up by the shoulders until I was sitting up.

I squinted at him, my eyes still adjusting to the sudden light. He was shirtless and sweaty, his hair tied back. He held a plate of food on his lap.

He untied my hands, put the plate in my lap, and turned away. I watched his stiff back for a while, wondering what to say.

I ate. Because I was hungry, and because I was hoping that if I ate that James would start talking when I was done.

I ate maybe half of the seasoned chicken, brown rice, and spinach before I handed it back to him.

He took it without a word, stood up, and left.

He had turned off the light then shut and locked the door before I realized his intent.

“James!” I shouted.

He didn’t respond.

I was so frustrated that I screamed.

I was so furious and anxious that it took me even longer to relax into sleep that time. Eventually my body just gave into the relentless darkness.

When I woke again it was still dark, but there was the faintest line of light showing through the side of the door. It was ajar.

I sat up, testing my wrists and ankles. I was free. I moved slowly to the door, pushing it open.

I had to squint against the bright hallway light. I blinked away the darkness for long moments while I took in the hallway.

James sat in a chair that was set against the wall, wearing nothing but his boxers. He was slumped forward, his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. It was such a defeated posture for him.

I approached him slowly, tentatively. I couldn’t tell if he was napping.

“James,” I said quietly.

“Call me Mr. Cavendish,” he said in a low voice. He didn’t move.

I’d been so angry with him, furious really, but it drained from me more quickly than I would have thought possible as I took him in.

He was like a wounded animal just then, and I only wanted to make it better.

I knelt in front of him. I touched his head, and he sat up, giving me a very mean look.

I shifted closer, moving between his legs.

He gripped my throat. “Why?” he asked quietly.

I swallowed, wetting my lips.

He watched the action with rapt attention.

“Why did I go see Sven without security?” I asked, for clarity.

“Yes. That.”

“I was nervous about meeting him. I had a hard time even going. I knew it would be perfectly safe, since we’d be in a crowded public place in broad daylight. I saw no threat, and I wanted to have a normal meeting. My security team makes me nervous. I can’t even imagine what an outsider looking in would think of the whole mess. I just wanted some semblance of a normal first meeting with him. That’s all. I’m sorry I worried you.”

“Worried me? Is that what you call it? I have that team guarding you, Bianca, because it’s the only way that I can bear for you to leave my sight. There is a man out there, a man who has killed at least two women, and he wants to kill you. He is unhinged, and completely unpredictable. The only thing we can predict is his grudge against you. Do you know what that does to me? You are more precious to me than my own life, by far. It’s not even a question. I would do anything for you. All I ask is that you let me protect you from a known threat. How could you be so careless, Bianca? So insensitive?”

I opened my mouth to respond and he covered it with his other hand, his lip curling into a snarl.

“Your father has been missing for weeks. We can only place his whereabouts at one place almost a week ago, and that is because a body marked the spot. He could be literally anywhere. And all he would have to do to see that you were in New York would be to look online. The paparazzi have mapped your weekly route with neon lights. I understand that you wanted to meet your half-brother. I wasn’t trying to keep you from it. All I asked was that you take your bodyguards with you. Your father and brother could have been working together. Your brother could have been luring you there. They could have taken you before anyone could have stopped them.”

I tried to protest even through his hand, but his eyes stopped me.

“Don’t. Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean that you were safe. You weren’t safe. A man with a gun wants you dead. It would only take one f*cking bullet.”

His eyes were terrible with anguish, and I knew that the fear was getting to him. He was doing everything he could, and I was still in danger. He felt like he was failing me, and it was eating him up inside.

He uncovered my mouth.

I spoke quietly. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d be there and back before you knew. I didn’t mean to do that to you. I swear I won’t ditch my security again. At least, not until my father is found.”

He shut his eyes and nodded. “When I couldn’t get ahold of you, and Blake told me she’d found your phone by our bed, I thought you’d left me.”

My brow furrowed. “Why would you think I’d left you? I don’t understand.”

The hand at my neck moved and gripped into my hair. “No. No answers until you’ve been punished.”

I licked my lips nervously. “That cell back there wasn’t a punishment?”

He shook his head. “That was a nap. And a chance for me to work off some aggression at the gym. No more questions.”

His other hand began to tug off his boxer briefs, and I tried to look down at what he was doing, but the hand in my hair held me fast.

He pushed my head down to his bared erection. He pushed himself into my mouth, and I sucked at him, thinking that this part was no punishment at all.

He guided my head up and down no more than four times before he was coming deep in my throat. I nearly gagged, I was so surprised. It was unusual for him to come so fast. His control over his own release constantly amazed me, though I supposed that it shouldn’t have, since he was so good at controlling mine.

He pulled me off him mid-cum, pulling me up to my feet while I could see his cock still twitching with his orgasm. I murmured a protest.

He slapped my ass, hard, then hooked his finger into my collar. He began to pull me, but not to the playground. He headed in the opposite direction, back to that cell. I had to swallow a protest. I didn’t want to be left in there again, but I knew that it was all in his hands now.

“Kneel on the ground,” he told me as he let go of my collar.

I obeyed, watching him. He moved to the small bed. He had it retracting into the wall with one touch of his finger. I hadn’t known it was that kind of bed.

One touch to the wall and he had something large descending from the ceiling. I watched with wide eyes as a large X lowered in front of me. It was the same height as James, which gave me a good idea what it was for.

“This is what’s called a St. Andrew’s cross,” he told me quietly. That was all.

He pulled me up with a finger in my collar and a fist in my hair. He pressed my front hard into that ominous X. He strapped my wrists and ankles to it nice and quick, before pressing his body hard to my back. I felt his erection against my butt and tried to arch into it. He slapped my ass hard before moving away.


I laid my head against my arm, tilted forward as I waited and listened for what he would do next.

I started as something hard but smooth stroked against my other cheek. I turned my head to see a thick black oval paddle that was patterned with holes. He pulled it away before I could get a better look.

He struck swiftly and repeatedly along my butt and thighs. I was still sore from the roses, which added to the pain, but he was relentless, not holding back a bit. He worked me over hard.

I had nothing to hold onto, nothing to grip on the cross, so my hands curled and uncurled as the blows struck me.

My legs were spread wide, and a few rough blows to my sensitive inner thighs had me gasping with the pain. He had been the reticent Dom since he’d picked me up from the café, but the force of his blows were telling me plenty, communicating so much that he hadn’t. He was furious and hurt and scared, and that pent-up, frustrated emotion was all for me.

My flesh was on fire when he finished. There was no pause between the last blow and him thrusting into me roughly from behind.

“That wasn’t your punishment, Bianca,” he rasped into my ear. “Do you want to know what your real punishment is?”

I nodded, unable to speak as he thrust into me again and again. I was on that fine edge when he pulled out of me abruptly.

“You don’t get to come until tonight, Love. Not for hours. I’m going to work you over, f*ck you thoroughly, and you don’t get an orgasm. That’s an order. And if by chance you disobey that order, you won’t get to come for a week.”

I wanted to scream in frustration, but instead I gasped as he thrust back into me, pounding inside of me, again and again.

“Don’t,” he said, knowing that I was so close.

He hit the end of me, coming with that rough little groan that I loved. I hated it right then, sobbing in frustration.

“Please,” I begged as he pulled out of me.

“Not until tonight,” he said firmly.

He left me there for long minutes before coming back to unfasten me. I didn’t move after I was loose, instead I just lay against that X and waited.

He sighed and swept me up into a cradle hold.

He carried me to the playground, laying me onto a firmly cushioned surface. At the first touch of my back to the table, I began to look around. There were two such tables in this room that I knew of for sure. I saw from where I was positioned just what he had in mind, but not before he had my wrists and ankles strapped tightly to the corners of the table.

He watched me intently while he slipped on tight latex gloves. “Any objections?” he asked, a touch of a taunt in the question, almost like he was daring me.

I set my jaw hard, just watching him, daring him to do his worst.

He gave me a tight smile and got to work.

He washed and dried the area around my nipples with a clinical thoroughness. He pulled tiny metal forceps from the open drawer built into the table.

He didn’t hesitate, using it to grip my left nipple firmly. At the end of the metal instrument was a small hoop that fit around my hard nipple perfectly. He held it captive while he leaned in close and marked it carefully on each side.

I had to tell myself to breathe as I watched him. I was painfully tense, not knowing what to expect. I’d never had anything pierced but my ears before.

He carefully studied the marks he’d made, my nipple still held firmly with those mean little forceps. He put the pen away, pulling out a sadistic looking needle with the same hand.

My eyes were glued to that thick needle as he pushed the sharp, hollowed-out tip of it into my skin. I took one very deep breath and held it.

He pushed it into my skin, and through, with a quick, almost smooth motion. It was painful but fast, the sight and feel of it a shock to my system.

He laced a tiny silver hoop into the needle, pulling it through, and then slipping the bigger needle out.

I watched my chest rise and fall as I started breathing again.

He pressed a cloth very gently to the newly pierced area before striding away.

He came back less than a minute later with two small, cold gel packs in his hands. One he set in the open drawer, the other against my pierced nipple.

“Are you up for the other?” he asked, watching me carefully. Even in this dangerous mood, I still saw concern.

I took a deep breath and nodded.

He changed his gloves before he gave my right breast the same treatment, quickly and with consummate skill. He tended to both breasts, carefully cleaning and icing them. The aftercare took much longer than the actual piercing had.

When he was done, he took off his gloves and unfastened me, picking me up and carrying me directly to the bed.

He laid me on my back, his hand moving between my legs to push one finger into me.

I glared at him.

He laughed. It was a cold laugh. My tender-lover was still very much missing, even with those little glimpses of concern I’d seen from him as he’d tended to me.

“Now, now, Love. Looking at me like that can get you punished, as well. Don’t think that it can’t get worse than a sore ass, some pierced nipples, and one day without an orgasm.”

Very deliberately, I shut my eyes and turned my head away, defiant of what I knew he wanted from me. I was pissed.

He just laughed that merciless laugh. “Okay, have it your way. I was going to leave you alone, but this is certainly more fun for me.”

He pushed me flat onto my back, and tied me spread-eagle to the bed. I kept my eyes shut tight.

He crawled between my legs and gripped my chin, very careful to avoid brushing against my tender breasts.

“Look at me. Now,” he growled.

I hesitated, but finally looked at him. I swallowed hard then moaned loudly as he lined himself up at my entrance, ramming in to the hilt.

“Don’t f*cking come,” he told me, jamming himself into me once, twice, three times. He came with that delicious groan of his, just shy of making me lose my mind.

“Very good, Love,” he murmured as he pulled out of me, his thick length still twitching.

He unfastened my feet, but only one of my wrists. This he left tied, but with a lot of slack. He curled naked against my back, burying his face into my neck. I arranged myself carefully, shifting to avoid brushing my breasts against my arms or the bed.

“Are you afraid I’ll try to run away? Is that why I’m still tied?” I asked him, since he’d never done this before. Something was seriously off.

“Yes,” he said succinctly. “No more questions right now.”

I tried to roll away, but he held me fast. He pressed hard against me. His cock was semi-hard against the back of my thigh. “Relax. All you have to do now is fall asleep. When you wake up again, your punishment will be over.”

That was much easier said than done. I was agitated, confused and mad as hell, and the fact that James was soon sleeping heavily and peacefully against my back was no help at all.